Das Herz ist ein dunkler Wald

When the young Marie, the mother of two children, one day follows her husband to bring him his violin, she finds out that he leads a shadow life not far from home with another woman and child. Her world falls apart. What follows in this second feature by the actress Nicolette Krebitz is not a psychological and realistic drama, but a realistic dramatic subject. That is the starting point for a strange cinematographic adventure. Alongside the realistic everyday sequences we see unfold – in theatre dialogues, situated in a bare set on an existing stage – the quarrels that in reality are not fought out. At the masked ball where the adulterous man has to perform, surrealistic plot developments start. The basic conflict is not new, on the contrary. Krebitz presents an inventive, contemporary portrayal of an age-old cliché: a woman who is deceived by her man and takes revenge. Somewhere in the middle of the film, Marie refers to Medea and as the film takes its course, she increasingly takes on her form.